Political and Administrative Organization

[Montero y Vidal’s Archipielago Filipino(Madrid, 1866), pp. 162-168, contains the following chapter.]

The municipal organization of Filipinas differs widely from that of Espana.

Some native functionaries, improperly called gobernadorcillos, [103] exercise command in the towns; they correspond to the alcaldes and municipal judges, of the Peninsula, and perform at once functions of judges and even of notaries, with defined powers.  As assistants they elect several lieutenants and alguacils, proportionate in number to the inhabitants.  Those assistants, together with three ex-gobernadorcillos to whom are referred the duties of judges of cattle, fields, and police, constitute a sort of town council.  Manila is the only place that has that corporation [i.e., ayuntamiento] with an organization identical with those of the same class in Espana.

Even when the gobernadorcillos are recompensed with a certain percentage for the collection of contributions, and they collect some other dues, the total sum that they finally receive is so small that their office is considered honorary.  In spite of this, the duty is an onerous one, and they are subject to annoyances, fines, and imprisonment, if the gubernative, judicial, and administrative authorities, etc., are rigorous.  The Indians covet it with a desire that is astonishing, and avail themselves of all possible means in order to obtain it.  The secret of the motive that impels them lies in their fondness for prominence, and in the fact that nearly all of them succeed in becoming rich, or in attaining independent means, after the two years of their office.  For the polistas, or individuals who are obliged to labor on the public works of the state, build their houses for them free of cost, bringing the materials from the forest or the points where they are found; there are the fallas, or the amount of the aliquot sum that is to make good the deficiency in public works [i.e., in the services on public works rendered by the natives], in the collection of which there is opportunity for the gobernadorcillo to figure, by supporting all or the majority of those who should perform that work, and himself using that money; the innumerable bribes and illegal exactions that they impose, and the taxes that they collect through numberless separate judgments:  [all these] make the office sufficiently lucrative, although in that country, scarcely any importance is attached to many of these irregularities (even by those who are injured by them), which custom has almost sanctioned as law.